Michael Mendez

With 30 years of experience, Mike Mendez is a leading innovator in biotechnology, and has been at the forefront of the molecular biology revolution. He has helped launch 10 startups, including as co-founder of four.

As Founder and CEO of Renew Biopharma, Mike has combined the scientists, expertise and the dominating intellectual property — with more than 110 issued patents under the company’s control — to develop therapeutics based on pathway engineering of cannabinoids at scale and purity that surpass agriculturally-grown, energy-intensive Cannabis plants. Renew’s first target is to find a pain management medication to address the opioid crisis.

Having earlier co-founded Sapphire Energy, an algae-based biofuels company, Mike transformed the field of microalgae engineering and created a trait-mining platform to discover genes in algae that could be applied to agriculture and to turning algae into a powerful production platform. That same platform is now being used to unlock a full suite of natural and novel cannabinoids to help save lives.

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